Out of the United States

Well, I'm mostly packed and trying to get tired so that I can get a good night's sleep tonight since I have an early plane to catch tomorrow. When I get back, I want to blog about the minor league hockey game we went to in Elmira yesterday with my dad and sister. :)

I will not be making any new posts from China. So look for me back here after December 11th and I'll talk all about the trip!

It is going to be an adventure, whether good or bad. LOL. I just got another email today saying one of the series of meetings will be at a different location. Augh! At least I don't have to worry about the hotel arrangements- I'll just follow the crowd.

I'll miss Dave so much. I think that's the worst part. So I'm already counting down the days until I can see him and get a big bear hug. :) Love you, Dave!!!! And I'll miss you tons!

Happy turkey day!

Just wanted to post and say Happy Thanksgiving to everyone!

I have been eating all day, and I am stuffed. My mom outdid herself this time.

Football, beer, and good food... and family of course, all a good combination for a relaxing day. I think I'll sleep well tonight.

Various Travels

I will be in China a week from now. As I said before, I’m not really looking forward to the trip for various reasons. One is the fact that I’ll be away from Dave for 12 days. :( I wish he could go with me, although it would be expensive and he would be so bored.

Anyway, I was thinking about the whole thing and realized that Dave and I have had a lot of great adventures together so far. So I reflected on the vacations we’ve taken in the past.

In June of 2005, we went to New York City to see the musical Wicked. We actually planned that before we were dating, as friends and by the time we went on the trip we were dating. That trip was a lot of fun. Wicked was awesome, and we went to the ticket booths near the singing cowboy in underwear, and got cheap tickets to see Dirty Rotten Scoundrels as well. I also went to the Statue of Liberty and Ellis Island for the first time.

For New Year’s 2005/2006, we traveled with the Woodland Hills High School marching band to Arizona. I went to the Grand Canyon for the first time. It was beautiful! I was also actually considered part of the staff for the band and I had a lot of fun helping them out. I caught a cold on that trip though and was pretty miserable for a few days, but we celebrated New Year’s 3 times (in 3 different time zones) and I met some really nice people (Jen and Rachel), who were my roommates for the trip.

In September of 2006, we went with Dave and Kristy to Disney World in Florida. We stayed in Pop Century, one of the Value Resorts. We were there eight days, so we ended up spending 2 days in each park. I’m still not sure which is my favorite, but we’re planning on going back in 2009 with the Hotecks, so maybe we’ll decide then. (Our goal is to drink around the world in Epcot.) We rode Expedition Everest, the new roller coaster in Animal Kingdom. The first day we were there, we rode in the very first seat, and the lines were short so we went on it three times in a row, literally! Just walked through the line and pretty much got right back on.

Our next trip was to San Diego in March of 2007. I had just put in notice at my last job and it was a bit stressful, so it was nice to get away. Dave had a conference there for work, so I tagged along and had a few days of fun by myself while he was at the conference. (One of those days I got a pedicure, which was so relaxing!) We went to the San Diego zoo and saw the pandas, which was really cool. And the weather was nice and warm, as it always is in San Diego. We wanted to go to Mexico one of the days, but that didn’t work out. We didn’t bring birth certificates and we didn’t want to get to the border and be turned away. Maybe next time…

For New Year’s 2007/2008, we got tickets on New Years day to see the Winter Classic at the Buffalo Bills stadium. The Penguins played the Sabres outside and it was a great game! Ended in a shoot out and we won, so it was perfect. Anyway, Dave and I decided to make a trip of it and went to Niagara Falls the night before. It was VERY cold but we saw fireworks above the falls, which were amazing! The first set we saw on the Canadian side, and we crossed over to the American side just before midnight, to avoid the rush. (It was the first time I got to use my passport!) Anyway, just as we crossed they shot off the 2nd set of fireworks and we saw them as well. I won money again in a casino (oh the first time was in Las Vegas during our trip to Arizona when we were there for a layover) and got a Hard Rock Café glass with it. I didn’t say I won a significant amount of money, just that I won! The ride back to Pittsburgh was pretty bad- it was in a snowstorm and we saw first hand that New York takes much better care of roads in the winter than Pennsylvania does. There were a number of cars and other vehicles off the road on the way back and it took almost twice as long as it would have in good weather.

In March of 2008 I tagged along with Dave again for his annual work conference, which was in Disney World, for a much needed vacation from everything. We stayed in the All Star Music resort, which was really neat. Dave was there all week and I joined him basically for the weekend because I didn’t have a lot of vacation to spare. It was nice to just relax in the sun and hang out at the parks for a little bit.

Dave and I spent our honeymoon in Gatlinburg, Tennessee, at the foot of the Smoky Mountains in April 2008. Again, that was a relaxing vacation. I loved it. We rented a cabin between Gatlinburg and Pigeon Forge. The cabin had a Jacuzzi inside, hot tub outside, big screen TV upstairs with a bar next to it, and a game room with a pool table and air hockey table. We had a lot of fun in the cabin, and even caught one of the Penguins Stanley Cup playoff games on the big screen TV. We stopped at a liquor store and stocked the bar a little bit, and grilled out in the backyard a few times. Two of the highlights of the week were a hummer ride in the Smoky Mountains and a trip to Oak Ridge to see the graphite reactor. Yep, real honeymoon activities, right? LOL. Oh and the Smokey Mountains were absolutely beautiful.

Our latest “vacation” was a work trip for me where Dave tagged along. I went to a conference in Portoroz, Slovenia for work in September of 2008. We flew up on Sunday, arrived on Monday, and the conference was Tuesday through Thursday. I gave a poster presentation on Wednesday and attended the sessions all three of the conference days. Met a nice group of Italian guys I ended up sitting next to for a lot of the sessions and we also went on a boat ride along the Adriatic coast of Slovenia. And Dave and I managed to make it to this cute town, Piran, two of the evenings. I thoroughly enjoyed Piran. It reminded me of what I picture of Italy with narrow streets and spectacular views of the sea and town. (I believe Piran used to be part of Italy but it’s now part of Slovenia.) Then we spent the weekend in Venice, Italy, since we were already close. We ended up getting an apartment for those two nights, which made it feel a bit like we actually lived there. We took a gondola ride, which I have ALWAYS wanted to do, and took in some of the sights. I think my favorite was St. Mark’s Basicila actually. And we saw the building that was used to film part of Casino Royale, which was really neat.

I have a lot of good vacation memories with Dave already. And I’m looking forward to more and wishing Dave could go to China with me. But I’m sure we’re going to have a lot more trips in the future and it’s always fun to travel with Dave.

Steelers pictures

Just a few pictures from the game. The Steelers beat the Chargers, 11-10! They dominated the stats, which doesn't show in the score but it was a win and that's all that matters. I posted more on facebook as well, if you have an account there.

Dave and I tailgated for a little bit in a parking lot. It wasn't a bad distance away.


It snowed during the game, this is from our seats.


And one more picture of the two of us, in our seats.

Black and Gold!

We got tickets to the Steelers game tomorrow!!!!!!!

GO STEELERS!

Wisdom teeth fun

Just figured I'd write a quick update- I'll post some pictures from our weekend later. We went to the Carnegie museum and saw the dinosaur bones- pretty cool!!! Dave says they have one of the best collections in the country or the world or something.

I got my top two wisdom teeth removed yesterday, almost 24 hours ago. My mouth is sore but I just ate macaroni and cheese. I was starving and figured it wouldn't get stuck in the holes maybe. All I've had since lunch yesterday was soup and milkshakes. (Thanks, Dave, for the milkshake!!!!) So now I'm not smart at all. The bottom two were impacted and removed my freshman year of college. The top ones continued to grow without the bottom to stop them, so they had to be removed as well.

My China trip is being finalized; I will probably disappear for the first two weeks in December. We're flying into Shanghai but then going to one of the sites for the meetings. I saw some pictures and it is absolutely desolate there. We are working long days, too, which probably won't matter because there isn't much to do where the site is. Just the hotel and lots of barren land. Oh and a hole in the ground where they will pour the concrete. LOL. It looks like we'll get one extra day in Shanghai in the end though. Cross your fingers for me!!!

Going to China...

I found out today that I'm probably (99.9% sure) going to China for work. I've wanted to travel and this will be a great experience. I have to admit, I need to get used to the idea though. Not the actual trip, but I'm going to miss some things here that I wanted to do. But I'm definitely going to take advantage of it.

I don't know the exact dates yet, just early December and maybe part of Thanksgiving weekend (for travel). I don't know how long, and I'm not completely sure where. We fly into Shanghai and what they told me for now is that we're going to Ningbo. I'm just glad I'll be there with a group.

So, family members, when you get Christmas presents, they might have been bought in China. We'll see! :)

Rambling on here...

Work is definitely making life more interesting. I got to go to Europe in September (Slovenia for a conference and then Dave and I spent our weekend in Venice while we were out there). That was the first time I traveled out of the United States, other than to Canada. I got a stamp in my passport! And already within a few months I'll be going to China. At least this will definitely make me preferred on my frequent flyer card. I'll definitely take advantage of that next year.

I actually don't have plans this weekend, which is amazing. Don't worry, I'm sure Dave and I will still keep pretty busy. But it's really nice to have the whole weekend wide open at this point.

Beautiful Fall Weather

I figured I would post some pictures from this weekend on here.

Friday, we handed out candy to the kids who came to our door, and then we dressed up for a party at a local brewery. Dave had his ghostbusters costume from the week before but I hated my $12 costume (something called Vampire Rose and proves sometimes it doesn't pay to be cheap). So I dressed up as Slimer! It was so comfortable and I actually got a lot of compliments. We don't really have a lot of pictures but here is one from my camera phone. We took it before we left our house.

Dave printed out the Slimer picture and we velcroed a small version that you see in the picture, and a bigger version that's on my back.

Saturday we went to the park with Dave's sister, Beth, and her son, Milo. I'll just post a couple of pictures. The weather was gorgeous and the leaves were beautiful!

Here are Milo and Beth, looking at the Allegheny River.

And Dave, Milo, and Beth, walking to the playground.

And Beth took a picture of Dave and me, with the pretty leaves in the background.

Sunday we played a concert with our wind ensemble. I don't have any pictures of that though.